Jim Kang: Resume

I've been a software developer since the year 2000. I'm product- and iteration-focused, and I build things to be as simple as possible. You can reach me at jimkang@fastmail.com.

• Work Experience
• • • Ghost Crab Workshop
    • Aug. 2021 to present
    • • Building ETL pipelines for Wordnik that extract example sentences from various sources and gets them into online dictionary entries so that users can get ideas about how words are used.
        • The three pipelines:
          • One pipeline takes books dropped into storage, parses the epub format, breaks the contents up into sentences, filters those sentences, then bulk uploads them into Wordnik's database.
          • Another pipeline streams a large (~20 GB) Wiktionary data dump using http range requests, uses hash checks against a Dynamo DB for changes in the Wiktionary entries from week to week, then extracts the updated entries' example sentences, and gets them into Wordnik's database.
          • A third pipeline uses a modified fork of the open source nyt-first-said to scrape the New York Times for words that it has never used before, then filters for certain conditions, extracts the surrounding sentences from the article, and puts them into Wordnik.
        • The pipelines are composed of AWS lambdas, chained via schedulers, direct invocation, or S3 triggers. Some are in Node and some are in Python (for ease of access to NLP libraries).
        • Built a custom observability scheme so that the progress of a source through the pipelines can be observed.
      • Reviewing code for PullRequest. I review mostly JavaScript/TypeScript from various client companies for bugs, error handling, maintainability, and security issues and provide explanations of issues as well as actionable remediation suggestions.
      • Designed and built data visualization systems for Climate Central.
        • Modified an existing system that used JavaScript configuration files to create new graphics. To avoid having to build code to create new graphics, I replaced that with an engine that rendered Vega specifications (which are declarative and accessible to a wider group of authors than JavaScript code is) to SVG.
        • Built a screenshot service that rendered web pages to images using Playwright and Docker running on AWS ECS.
        • Provided general front-end development work as needed.
        • Worked in D3, JavaScript, Vega, Node, Playwright, and Docker.
      • Introduced tests and improved Node app stability for Design Academy Eindhoven.
  • • Sabbatical
    • Nov. 2020 to Aug. 2021
    • Childcare, worked on bots, made an animated story in a 2048-byte program for Taper Magazine, recorded podcasts, made a browser-performed piece of generative music.
  • • Spotify
    • May 2016 to Nov. 2020, Experienced Developer
    • • Using vanilla JavaScript, built a kit that allows non-developers (designers and researchers) to author full-featured voice prototypes that parse user speech, ask questions, and play music. Dozens of prototypes were built and used in user tests every two weeks.
      • Built a data pipeline that composes and renders thousands of playlist covers each day based on the current contents of the This Is playlists using Python, Docker, Node, and headless Chrome.
      • Built web apps, Chrome extensions, and Electron apps for music content prototypes and evaluating and editing algorithmically-generated content.
      • Built promotional web sites for features (e.g. Time Capsule).
      • Wrote design documents for experimental features for the Spotify iOS client and built and A/B tested them.
      • Wrote design documents, built prototypes, and designed and administered unsupervised user tests for experimental features.
      • Built voice-activated speaker prototypes with Node and the Alexa Skill Kit.
      • Designed and administered Qualtrics surveys to gather user data to inform the design of an algorithmic playlist.
  • • Harvard Department of Continuing Education
    • June 2015 to April 2016, Senior Software Engineer
    • Made modifications to an open source video app written in JavaScript.
  • • Childcare
    • February 2015 to May 2015
    • Spent time at home taking care of my infant son. (The PayPal Boston office was laid off.)
  • • PayPal
    • February 2014 to January 2015, Software Engineer
    • Built features and fixed bugs on Node backend and Angular front end of the PayPal Shop site, which served coupons from various PayPal partners to hundreds of thousands of people per day.
    • Followed test-driven development and pair programming practices. Prioritized mobile web functionality.
  • • NPR
    • June 2013 to February 2014
    • Added OAuth to the Composer API Node server.
    • Wrote the first automated tests for the API server.
    • Built features for Composer, a browser app used by over 200 NPR member stations used it to add program schedules to their web sites and keep track of music they played, as part of a small Kanban-driven team.
  • • Ghost Crab Workshop
    • April 2012 to May 2012
    • Started a one-person indie development company.
    • Designed and developed Jotunheim, a journal and social media app for iOS.
    • Consulted on a product built in Unity 3D.
  • • Modo Labs
    • July 2010 to March 2012, Senior Developer
    • Built features and fixed bugs in Objective-C for university clients' iOS apps (e.g. Harvard and MIT apps).
    • Maintained PHP back end and HTML/CSS mobile web sites.
  • • Voter Activation Network
    • April 2009 to June 2010, Developer
    • Contributed to MiniVAN Touch iPhone app in Objective-C and SQL and server side support for it in VB .NET.
    • Wrote a WYSIWYG form editor in JavaScript with jQuery.
  • • Obama for America
    • 2008, Data Fellow
    • Analyzed voter file records using MySQL and Perl to help make decisions about canvassing targets.
    • Wrote Perl and Greasemonkey scripts to free up staffers that were spending whole days doing tasks manually.
    • Helped to win Indiana, which had not been won by the Democratic Party since 1964.
  • Further experience from 2000-2014 available on jimkang.com/resume. (Move the "More" slider all the way to the right.)
  • • GN Resound
    • 2004 to 2008, Senior Software Developer
    • Worked on a Windows hearing aid adjustment app code in C++, C#, and SQL.
    • Rapidly prototyped new UI designs in Flash.
    • Wrote a data graphing feature that visualized hearing device data.
  • • InstallShield
    • 2000 to 2004, Software Developer
    • Worked in C++ on IDEs that let users create Windows software installation programs.
    • Worked on multiple large-scale, short time-frame efforts to merge and integrate products into one another.

• Skills
• • JavaScript
  • Node.js
    
  • Test-driven development
  • Modular architecture
  • LevelDB
  • CSS
  • Browserify
    
  • Objective-C
  • Git, GitFlow
  • Tape, Mocha
  • D3
  • C++
  • SQL
  • HTML
  • Linux admin
  • Docker
  • BigQuery
  • AWS Lambda
  • Alexa Skills Kit
  • Product design
  • TypeScript
  • Svelte
  • Rollup
  • Web audio
  • Puppeteer, Playwright
  • Godot
  • …and more!